


tripping eyes and flooded lungs

by eachandeverydimension



Category: Welcome to Night Vale, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Crossover, Fate & Destiny, M/M, Meet-Cute, Or maybe just that Night Vale magnetism that draws people together, Serendipity - Freeform, Welcome to Night Vale crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 11:50:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1159372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eachandeverydimension/pseuds/eachandeverydimension
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik's been driving forever. Then he sees a sign that says "Welcome to Night Vale". He finds the following: a strange gate, a pizza parlor, and Charles Xavier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tripping eyes and flooded lungs

A man came into town today. He was lost. He still is lost. He may not even know that he is lost. How many of us drift through life untethered, unmoored, unknowing, before finding that thing that we did not know we needed before we found it? Some of us are more fortunate than others. We are the right person. Sometimes, we are at the right place. Others still are at the right time. This man, I think, is just like the rest of us. Complete in his knowledge that he is incomplete. He is in the right place, but not quite the right person, and at not yet the right time. And isn’t that what we all want? To have at least a fragment of the puzzle, to take one minuscule step towards filling that hole beside ourselves that is exactly the shape of a person you have yet to meet.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The desert stretches out endlessly on every side of Erik. Bright sunlight pounds down onto the roof of the Camaro, heating it up. The sun leaches away any trace of moisture in the bone-dry sand, which is stirred up in great clouds as the car speeds past. Straight as an arrow, the road stretches out in front of Erik, leading nowhere, as far as he can tell. His hands feel tacky against the warm steering wheel. Erik’s hair sticks to his forehead with sweat, and his undershirt clings to the small of his back. His shirt was thrown into the backseat long ago, around the time any and all landmarks stopped appearing. 

Sunglasses perched on his nose, Erik surveys his surroundings, not that there’s very much of it other than sand. Was it quite usual for there to be such a large expanse of desert in America? He was starting to feel like he was in the Sahara Desert or Australia or something, except that the sand around him was perfectly flat, like someone had spread out a yellow tablecloth over the landscape and forgotten it. 

Finally, an amorphous dark mass appeared at the end of the road. Well, at least he was going somewhere and not just driving around in circles in the middle of the desert, destined to run out of water and fuel, become mummified in his car and be discovered by archeologists centuries later. It looked like a town of some sort; Erik could make out a signal tower and what looked like a couple of buildings. 

With an actual destination in front of him, Erik’s journey felt like it passed more quickly. Ten minutes later, the dark town loomed above Erik. He had passed a strange sign about a kilometer ago, and Erik found that he was still thinking about it as he pulled up in front of the town gates. 

Welcome to Night Vale. Population: 1974 humans, 123 unspecified, 1 dragon and 18 angels. The last word Erik had to guess, it had been scratched out so viciously from the signpost that the paint was only visible in certain spots. Erik was pretty sure that he was wrong anyway, because seriously, angels? He wasn’t even going to talk about the dragon. 

In any case, Erik was starting to think that the town was actually as weird as the sign had made it out to be. The gate in front of him was metal, he could tell, from the little spots where the yellowed pages pasted to them had disintegrated and peeled off in long strips. Paper covered almost every inch of the gates, which were fastened at the centre with a lock. Fences stretched out on either side of the gates, and a small guardhouse was tucked away at a corner. The town just might be full of loonies. As Erik stared in confusion at the strange gate and tried to choose between dehydration and the shady town almost definitely full of mental institution escapees, someone emerged from the gatehouse. He looked surprisingly normal. Short-statured and pale, the stranger held onto a key that he used to unlock the gate. Well, he tried to, anyway.

As the stranger was concentrating on the uncooperative lock, Erik observed him. He had pale blue eyes, shaggy brown hair that made him look young, and red lips that were worried at as he worked on the lock. Finally, the lock clicked open, and the stranger looked up at Erik, an annoyingly beautiful smile on his face. How could anyone be this cheerful in this murderous heat?

“Hello, Erik. Welcome to Night Vale!” he said in a bright voice. Erik frowned and hesitated outside the gates, which were now yawning open. How did he know Erik’s name? 

He asked the stranger as much, and that brilliant smile didn’t falter once as he replied, “Oh, Cecil’s been talking about you on the radio for a while now. He got bored with all the sand though, so now he’s narrating his and Carlos’ third date.” 

Erik was even more confused. Who was this Cecil or Carlos? And why would he be talking about Erik? Erik was quite sure that he knew neither a Cecil, nor a Carlos, and definitely none of either that were involved with each other. In his daze, Erik was pulled through the gates by the stranger, who hurried him along the main street to a building which appeared to be covered entirely by a single sheet of dark cloth. As they drew closer, he could see that it was velvet. This town just got weirder and weirder.

“Hold on, my car!” Erik said. It was still parked outside the gates. 

“Oh, don’t worry, Camaros don’t work in Night Vale. Besides, no one is scheduled to use the gate for the next month or so.” The stranger replied. His pace hastened, and Erik found himself pulled up the stairs that led into the velvet-clothed building.

“The council appointed ten minutes that lets you stay in Night Vale without registration won’t last forever, you know. Come on, I’ll hold your hand so you don’t get lost.” With that, the stranger grabbed Erik’s hand and pulled him into the darkness of the building. 

What happened next was confusing. Erik was glad for the hand in his, even if he didn’t know the identity of this stranger. The inside of the building was pitch-dark, and somehow the stranger managed to guide Erik to a couch without bumping into anything or tripping. Both of them sat down and then a voice came out of the darkness, startling Erik. 

Questions were asked, of that Erik was quite certain. What they asked was quite another matter. As Erik stood outside the velvet-clothed building, blinking in confusion in the fading evening light, he could not for the life of him remember what questions he had answered.

The only clear memory that he had of his past few hours, which he had judged to have passed by the setting sun, was the companionship of the stranger. His hand, gripped in Erik’s with just the right amount of pressure. His dulcet tones, translating for Erik when he didn’t understand the questions posed. He found that he was still holding onto the stranger’s hand as they stood on the steps of the building, looking out at residential lights flicker on.

Noticing that Erik had snapped out of his daze, the stranger squeezed Erik’s hand. “Well, that certainly took a while. I’m famished. What do you think? Pizza for dinner?” His grin was as bright as the setting sun as he jogged down the stairs outside the velvet-clothed building.

“Um, sure.” Erik said, somewhat redundantly, since the stranger had already taken off and pulled Erik along with him. Erik was still disorientated from the events of the day. He had woken up with an inexplicable urge to just drive. Just picked up a few supplies, filled his tank and set off. Followed whichever route looked the most appealing, that felt like it was pulling at him, at the Camaro, and taken it. And now he was here, holding hands with this stranger, who had just helped Erik through what had to be the most confusing and/or terrifying citizenship interview, and who he had met just that afternoon at that strange gate.

Wait, the gate that was covered with book pages. Erik felt like he had been dropped without warning into the deep end of a pool, there were so many questions he had about this strange little town that he needed answers to. For now, he would settle for knowing the truth about the paper mâché job done on the town gates.

“That gate, why was it…” Erik asked Charles, whose determined pace was carrying them steadily away from the velvet-clothed building, and towards a line of stores. 

“Covered with pages?” Charles finished his sentence for him. “It’s a precaution. Just in case there are any escapes at the library. The pages keep the librarians occupied, so that there’s enough time to activate the Sheriff’s Secret Police. That way, the damage is limited to town. Even Desert Bluffs doesn’t deserve librarians on the loose.” At this, Charles shuddered visibly.

Erik’s eyebrows went up. He was rather fond of books, actually, and all the librarians he had met had been rather nice. What kind of librarians did Night Vale have? Well, Erik decided, that question could wait for another day.

“Wait. What’s your name?” Erik slowed the stranger down using their joined hands. The stranger’s pace faltered, and then he stopped completely in front of a store display promoting City Council-approved air conditioning units guaranteed to filter out REDACTED. Curious.

“Oh. You’ve forgotten,” the stranger said, voice small. His eyes were downcast. He let their hands fall apart, then traced an invisible pattern on the storefront glass using a fingernail. “Those City Council meetings sometimes cause amnesia, but I had hoped that you might have at least remembered my name.”

A sad smile appeared on his face. Erik’s hand felt cold and bereft where it hung at his side.

“My name is Charles Xavier. I’m very pleased to meet you.” Charles plastered on an artificially bright smile on his face and extended a hand.

Erik found that he much preferred the smile that Charles had donned when he unlocked the gate, or decided dinner.

“I’m Erik Lensherr. Sorry for forgetting you.” The unusual words passing through his mouth didn’t faze Erik at all, and he found that for once, he was actually contrite. Especially for taking away Charles’ easy smile.

He shook Charles’ hand. It felt strangely right for it to be back in Erik’s grip again. When Charles let go, Erik’s hand tingled. He tucked it in his pocket, to resist the urge to catch Charles’ hand.

“Oh, it’s quite alright. I forgot what cutlery was and ate with my hands for a whole week after my interview. The town thought I was a barbarian. I heard that it was even worse in the past. There was even a ritual murder involved.” The last part was whispered conspiratorially.

Charles’ mood swiftly rebounded, and he chattered to Erik about Night Vale as they continued down a line of unusual storefronts. Easy payment at your bloodstone circle: simply sacrifice your favorite houseplant, a sign outside a hairdressers’ proclaimed. Another promoted brochures for finding the two invisible clock towers in Night Vale. Erik spotted a masseuse whose opening hours were between five to eight am, which was actually the most normal thing along the street. A supermarket, which sold only shampoo and tinned tomatoes, as far as Erik could tell from the brief glance he took inside, rounded up the end of the street. 

They finally stopped outside a pizza parlor. Blue neon lights outside announced that it was “Big Rico’s”, that “Nobody makes a slice like Big Rico’s” and then below that in smaller, rather ominous blood-red letters, “no one.” The inside of Big Rico’s was redolent with the smell of pizza, and if Erik turned a blind eye towards some of the stranger patrons of the store, he could have pretended that he was in any old pizza parlor in the city, and not in the middle of the desert, in an odd town called Night Vale.

The two of them settled in a booth, and when Charles went to order, Erik very carefully avoided the gaze of any of the other patrons, especially the guy two booths over who seemed to be glowing, just a little. Erik was pretty sure he could see the pepper shaker through him too. He chose instead to look over what Charles assured him was the local currency. Erik was relatively certain that these were just seashells. A few sand dollars, three scallop shells, two pairs of shells that, when opened up, looked like a pair of angels’ wings, and one conch shell. 

As Erik was very carefully tracing the edge of one of the angel wing shells, Charles came back. He glanced down at the table. “Oh, the money here’s a little different. It took a little getting used to, but I got the hang of it anyway. I’m sure you will too.” He was confident in a way that should have irked Erik, but didn’t.

Takes a little getting used to, Charles had said. And before, in the streets, he mentioned that he had forgotten cutlery. If he had been born here, there would have been no need to have a citizenship interview, or get used to the currency. Erik had assumed that Charles had come from Night Vale, since he was so blasé about everything odd here, but…

“Hold on. You’re not from here?”

“Oh no! I thought you could tell from my accent.” This made sense actually, now that Erik thought about it. Charles spoke with the rich, buttery accent of BBC newscasters. Erik felt like an idiot. The susurrus of conversation in the pizza parlor, Erik could hear, was made-up by distinctively American voices.

Charles continued. “I was born in England, but came to America when I was little. Grew up in Westchester, and then went back to England for university. Then I came to America again.”

Charles stared at the window, which was a perfect mirror reflection of the inside of Big Rico’s, all light outside having faded since they came in. Two Charles tapped their lips, heads angled thoughtfully towards each other.

“As for how I ended up here in Night Vale, well. One day I just felt like driving, you know. To see the desert, to follow roads I had never heard of. It was just an urge.” Charles aimed a bright smile at Erik. “That evening, I ended up here.” 

His smile turned wistful. “There were a few rough patches, but I got used to it. Night Vale is a good place, you know. I’ve just always felt like something was missing in my life. Not just here, but everywhere I’ve been. Not something big, like there’s no oxygen in the air. Just… something subtle. Like the magnetic poles are a degree off everywhere, so I’m pulled in all the wrong directions.”

One side of Charles’ smile tilted upwards.

“Do you know, tonight is the only time that I feel like everything fits.”

Their conversation broke as their pizza arrived. Erik fingered a slice of pizza before he spoke. “I understand. All of it. That’s what I feel. Today, the urge to drive and the constant misalignment. Like you’re looking for a place you’ve never been to before. Like here.”

“You know, I listened to the radio the night I arrived in Night Vale. It said that a year later, someone else would arrive in Night Vale, and I had to be the one who met him. Is it you I’ve been waiting for?” Charles cradled his face with his hand.

Erik thought about the way this felt so right. He thought about Charles’ smile and the twinkle in his eyes. The feel of their entwined fingers. The way it felt like the world had snapped into alignment when he met Charles, like a previously undiscovered dislocated shoulder popped back into place. The steady, reassuring hum of his atoms telling him this is home.

“Yes,” Erik said.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Northern Downpour by Panic! at the Disco.
> 
> I really wanted to try out the WTNV atmosphere, there's really nothing like it, but Cecil and Carlos aren't really familiar to me yet, so I plopped two of my favorite characters, Charles and Erik into Night Vale.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
